Part 1: Why and How Risk is Shared.- 1. Introduction: Sharing Risks, on Averages and Why they Matter; Maria Fusaro.- 2. General Average and All the Rest: The Law and Economics of Early Modern Maritime Risk Mitigation; Ron Harris.- 3. Risky Narratives: Framing General Average into Risk-Management Strategies (13^th-16^th Centuries); Giovanni Ceccarelli.- Part 2: Origins and Variants of Mutual Protection.- 4. General Average in Byzantium; Daphne Penna.- 5. Rules and Practices of General Average in the Islamic Mediterranean on the Eve of the Emergence of the Italian Communes; Hassan Khalilieh.- 6. Principles and Developments of General Average: Statutory and Contractual Loss Allowances from the Lex Rhodia to the Early Modern Mediterranean; Andrea Addobbati.- Part 3: The Iberian Experience.- 7. The ''Mutualisation'' of Maritime Risk in the Crown of Castile, 1300-1550; Ana María Rivera Medina.- 8. General Average, Compulsory Contributions and Castilian Normative Practice in the Southern Low Countries (Sixteenth Century); Gijs Dreijer.- 9. The Nautical Republic of the Carrera de Indias: Commerce, Navigation, Casos Fortuitos and Avería Gruesa in the Sixteenth Century; Marta García Garralón.- Part 4: The Genoese Experience.- 10. General Average in Genoa: Between Statutes and Customs; Antonio Iodice.- 11. The Economic Structure of Maritime Trade Calling at the Port of Genoa through the Analysis of General Average Data (16th-17th centuries); Luisa Piccinno.- 12. Financing and Risk in Genoese Maritime Trade during the Eighteenth Century: Strategies and Practices; Andrea Zanini.- Part 5: Mature Systems.- 13. Divide and Rule: Risk Sharing and Political Economy in the Free Port of Livorno; Jake Dyble.- 14. GA Adjustments in Amsterdam: Reinforcing Authority through Transparency and Accountability (late Sixteenth - early Seventeenth Century); Sabine Go.- 15. ''The Honour of Giving my Opinion'': General Average, Insurance and the Compilation of the Ordonnance de la Marine of 1681; Lewis Wade.